1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of producing a recorded product (printed product) and an image forming apparatus, and in detail to a method of producing a recorded product (printed product) and an image forming apparatus for increasing the degree of freedom for selecting recording media in inkjet recording.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, it is desired to form high quality images on a wide variety of recording media irrespective of ink absorption in an ink-jet recording method. Various kinds of methods have been proposed for this purpose. In particular, a transfer type ink-jet method has been paid attention to. In this method, an image is temporarily formed on an intermediate transfer body, and then the image is transferred to a recording medium by changing the physical properties of the ink.
In Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. Hei. 5-330035, the method is proposed in which a hot-melt ink is ejected on an intermediate transfer body by heating the ink-jet head and the ink supply system, and then the ink is fixed with the heat being released. However, in order to optimize the phase change characteristic (solid-liquid phase change caused by heat) of the ink, the ink which contains an extremely large amount of binder relative to a coloring agent must be used. Accordingly, a large amount of the ink needs to be provided to obtain the desired concentration thereof. As a result, the quality of an image is reduced due to an increased thickness of the ink on the output image. In addition, since an ink which is solid at normal temperature is used, it is necessary to heat and melt the ink in an ink flow path at the time of start-up, and it takes time to output an image. Furthermore, the equipment is always heated during the operation, and thereby a huge amount of energy is required.
A large number of transfer-type ink-jet recording methods are proposed for a water-based ink which is considered to be environmentally the most preferable as an ink-jet ink. It is preferable to use the intermediate transfer body having low surface energy for stably transferring the ink image formed on the intermediate transfer body to the recording media. On the other hand, the intermediate transfer body having low surface energy has a property incompatible with the above, i.e., the property that it tends to repel the water-based ink, thus making it difficult to form an image. The reason why an intermediate transfer body having the low surface energy is not practically manufactured is that the above problems have not been solved fundamentally.
In Japanese Patent Publication No. 3,428,689, devised is the method for improving the affinity between water-based ink and the surface of the intermediate transfer body which tends to repel the water-based ink, by applying the surfactant having an HLB (hydrophile-lipophile balance) value of 7 to 8 on the surface of the intermediate transfer body.
However, in the method described in Japanese Patent Publication No. 3,428,689, when a highly ink-repelling material is used for the surface of the intermediate transfer body in order to transfer an ink image formed on the intermediate transfer body to a recording medium at a high transfer rate, the applied surfactant itself is repelled in some cases. In other words, if a highly lipophilic surfactant is used as a surfactant, the above repelling property is reduced. However, in Japanese Patent Publication No. 3,428,689, since the surfactant having an HLB value of 7 to 8 is used, the above repelling occurs. Accordingly, the above surfactant is insufficient to achieve a highly fine image such as photograph.
As described above, in ink-jet recording, the method might be effective in which a surfactant is applied on an intermediate transfer body to reduce the repellation of ink. However, there are still problems to be solved in order to achieve both the reduction of the repellation of ink and the high transfer rate, thus obtaining a highly fine image such as photograph.